


Subtext

by literati42



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Found Family, Gen, Gil gives good hugs, Gil is such a good surrogate father, Hurt/Comfort, I ship Malcolm and therapy, Kid Malcolm Bright, Malcolm Bright Needs a Hug, Malcolm Bright is never one hundred percent fine, Mentioned Suicide Attempt, Suicidal Thoughts, Teenage Malcolm Bright, episode1x02 tag, mental health, mentions of Jessica Whitly, mentions of Martin Whitly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-12-13 23:09:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21005699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literati42/pseuds/literati42
Summary: Tag for episode 1x02When Gil asked "Kid, how bad is it?" he meant a million things, and in his mind he remembers the millions of times he's asked that same question to Malcolm before.





	Subtext

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all! This story is technically not for whumptober, but I am still planning to do some short whumptober pieces! So if you have requests, drop them in the comments.  
Also! Follow me on twitter @themythofpsyche where I ramble about Prodigal Son on a weekly basis.
> 
> Contextualizing: I am a mental health doc student, so I try to write from that place when discussing Malcolm's mental state. The way the show does his trauma and mental health is one of my favorite things and I like exploring it. That said be be forewarned it will be discussed somewhat in this story. Check the end notes for suicide prevention resources. Take care of yourselves, lovelies!

Gil watched Malcolm as the younger man sat slouched on his office couch. “How bad is it?” He asked, and the question meant a million things.

“I can do the job,” Malcolm said, answering a question he did not ask.

There were a million questions within the one Gil asked, but Malcolm always answered the wrong question.

“How bad is it?” Gil asked a thirteen-year-old Malcolm who sat on his couch, ignoring a cup of apple cider Jackie placed in his hands moments before. The tremoring in his hands was a new development that caused Gil pain every time he saw it. Malcolm had a black eye, a swollen lip, and tears edging around his bright blue eyes. 

“I only got suspended for three days,” he answered. Gil leaned forward and cupped the back of the kid’s neck.

“You know that’s not what I’m asking.”

The teenager hugged him then, sniffing. Gil held on to the kid. It was not fair that Martin Whitly’s choices haunted the teenager. It was definitely not fair that he got punished when he most likely had not even defended himself. Malcolm Bright did not defend himself ever. He was too afraid of causing harm.

Gil closed his eyes, wanting to protect him and knowing he could not.

“How bad is it?” Gil asked instead of ‘are you okay?’ Malcolm would not be on his front stoop in his pajamas in the middle of the night if he was okay. The seventeen-year-old hugged himself.

“No…I shouldn’t have woken you.”

“How many times do I have to tell you, you get to wake me up,” he said. Gil stepped back, holding the door open to let him in. Malcolm was jittering, bags shadowing his eyes. “Come into the study, Jackie’s still asleep.”

Malcolm followed him silently, not saying a word even when Gil threw him a sweatshirt. He just pulled it on, letting it hang awkwardly on his skinny frame. His knuckles cracked from the tension as he tried to straighten them.

“You haven’t answered my question,” Gil pointed out, taking a seat and pouring himself a tumbler of whiskey. The teenager held up a packet of paper, and Gil took it slowly. “Criminal psychology,” he read, slowly looking up to study Malcolm. “Does your mother know?”

“No.”

“Does Dr. Whitly?”

Malcolm flinched. “I haven’t told anyone.”

Gil nodded slowly, looking at the paper silently for a moment. “You’d make an amazing profiler.”

Malcolm’s eyes snapped up to his, uncertain but hopeful.

“Are you certain this is what you want?” Gil asked. “That you don’t want to get away from all of this?”

“There isn’t an away,” Malcolm said, “But I could use it. I could do something good. I could be worth…” he stopped himself, “My experiences could be worth something.”

Gil leaned forward, “You’re worth something whether you do this or not.”

“I misspoke,” Malcolm said, but they both knew he had not. “Mother will be furious…”

The detective nodded. There was no denying that. Jessica wanted a different life for her son. It was admirable, even if her methods tended to be aggressive and manipulative. She wanted him to have a normal life. Gil wanted that too. He often wondered what a Malcolm without the crimes of Martin Whitly would have become. But Malcolm was not “normal,” and Gil loved the man he was becoming, just as he was.

“Well, a letter of recommendation from an NYPD detective could go pretty fair,” Gil said. Malcolm looked up, startled and touched.

“Gil…thank you.”

“Any time, kid,” He squeezed the back of Malcolm’s neck, “Let me make you something. Tea?”

“Coffee?” Malcolm asked.

Gil looked at the clock and raised an eyebrow pointedly. “I’ll see if we have decaf.” He tossed a blanket off the armchair toward the kid and went off in search of it.

When he came back a few minutes later with two cups of chamomile, Malcolm was wrapped in the blanket, but still shivering, and Gil had a pretty strong idea it had nothing to do with the cold. He handed him the mug and sat back down.

“What’s he going to think?” Malcolm asked Gil.

“What do you want him to think?” the Detective asked slowly.

Malcolm met his eyes, “I don’t know. I guess I don’t want him to think this is all about him.” He ducked his head. “And I…I don’t want him to be angry. I shouldn’t still care. Why do I still care?” he looked back up, fresh tears in his eyes. Gil got up and went to the kid, hugging him. He wished that Malcolm would stop seeing Dr. Whitly, but it was a losing battle. Gil knew the man was not the perfect father Malcolm still seemed to believe he was. He could see the pain and damage that twisted mind caused his kid, but the kid still did not. He could not push him, even if it pained him every time.

“If this is what you want, do it. We’ll figure the rest out later. Alright?”

“How bad is it?” Gil asked, tilting his head to the side to examine the kid, now honestly a young man. After everything, Gil really hoped for once the answer was better than he expected. Malcolm looked up. His eyes had lost some of their light, and there was a fading scar on his neck from the recovering injection spot. “I’m going to change my name.”

Gil tried to keep his expression neutral, but honestly, it was a surprise. “You’re changing your name?”

“I don’t want to go to Quantico a Whitly. Not after…not now.”

Gil thought about his words. When Malcolm initially decided to go from Harvard to Quantico, he declared he was never going to see Dr. Whitly again. It was a relief. After all the pain that monster caused Malcolm, knowing his influence was at an end was a breath of air. Maybe his relief made him miss the signs, but he had no idea—he did not even guess—that Malcolm would go and tell his serial killer father goodbye.

Dr. Whitly, manipulative, possessive, evil, would not allow that.

Gil’s eyes went to Malcolm’s neck for a fraction of a second before he forced himself to look away.

He noticed the tremor in the younger man’s hands and gently squeezed his shoulder. “I thought, Bright,” Malcolm said. He cringed, embarrassed. “Is it stupid?” Gil looked around Malcolm’s apartment. The kid had told him about all the little things. Sunshine the bird, the daily affirmations, starting yoga, and an alarm clock playlist that pumped positive music throughout his apartment to wake him up. He was trying everything to suck the venom of his father’s darkness out of his body.

“Bright,” Gil repeated, smiling, “It suits you.”

“How bad is it?” Gil asked into the phone. The answer was wordless, shaky breaths. He sat straight up, feeling Jackie shift and wake beside him. “Bright? Kid? Answer me.”

“I can’t do it,” he said finally. The young man was at Quantico now, pursuing his dreams despite the disapproval of his overprotective mother and demented, possessive father, but he was also four hours away. A distance Gil felt keenly at times like this.

“Talk to me, Bright.”

“I can’t do it. I can’t live up to them,” Malcolm’s voice hitched. Closing his eyes, Gil could almost see the kid, probably pretzeled into an awkward position, hands shaking, those blue eyes shining with tears. “It doesn’t matter what I do, it doesn’t matter how hard I try. No matter how hard I work, I will only ever be Dr. Martin Whitly’s son. They look at me and they see him, and all of them, all of them are just waiting for me to snap.” Quieter, then he said, “I can’t escape it.”

Gil felt his heart rate escalate, adrenaline shooting through him. After the first attempt, Jackie booked them both for suicide prevention training. Now, Gil tried to keep his tone calm. “Have you hurt yourself?”

“No,” Bright said, his voice shaking.

“Are you thinking about it?”

The kid did not answer.

“Bright,” Gil said sharply. He saw Jackie grab her phone and start typing.

“I…I don’t know,” he said, his voice shaky. “I don’t have a plan…I just…my thoughts are spinning…”

Jackie held up the screen, and Gil read it, nodding to her. “Bright, Malcolm…Jackie booked you a bus ticket. You are going to the station. You are getting on a bus, and you are coming here. We’ll tell your professors you have the flu, and you’re going to stay with us.”

“My mother…”  
“Never needs to know you’re here. Get to the station. Will you stay safe long enough to get here?”

“Yes,” Malcolm said after a beat.

“Swear it. Swear to me you’re getting on that bus. Don’t pack anything, just come.”

Gil stayed on the phone with him all the way to the station, and he was waiting at the other side when the bus pulled up.

Malcolm stumbled off. He looked terrible, like he had not slept in days. He definitely looked like he was not eating enough either. Gil caught him, pulled him close. Thankful, so thankful he was here and alive.

“Maybe you’re right,” Malcolm said, an hour later, as he sat huddled in a blanket on the couch in Gil’s study. “Maybe I’m not cut out for the FBI.”

“Hey, hey. I never said that,” Gil replied, “Never. I said you’re too good for them. They don’t deserve you.”

Gil put him back on a bus a week later. He still looked bad, but there was less desperation in his eyes, and he swore he would look for a therapist when he got back to Quantico. The detective stroked his beard as he watched the kid go, hugging Jackie as she came over. “Is there ever going to come a day I don’t worry when he’s out of my sight?”

“Honestly?” Jackie said, with her usual Brooklyn bluntness, “Probably not.”

So, talking to the profiler over a tumbler of whiskey, after the family annihilator case, when Gil asked, “Kid, how bad is it? What do I need to know?” the weight of a thousand other moments hung there. He meant, “are you in danger?” and “are you going to hurt yourself” or “get yourself hurt?” He meant, “Am I going to have to watch you fall apart again and wonder if I can pick up all the pieces?” Gil meant, “Am I going to lose you?” He meant a million things by that question, and none of those things were “can you do the job?”

**Author's Note:**

> Malcolm Bright in my story and in the show demonstrates suicidal behaviors. If you or anyone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, go to the National Suicide Lifeline website:  
https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/  
They have a 24/7 help line to call, a number to text, and information on suicide. You can also learn more at the National Institute of Mental Health's pages on Depression  
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/depression/index.shtml  
And PTSD  
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd/index.shtml  
Both of which Malcolm likely has


End file.
